Syracuse, N.Y. — Syracuse's win over Boston College Monday night pushes an early ACC story line this season.

The three Big East defectors now embraced by the ACC are a combined 8-2 this year. Syracuse and Pittsburgh, which plays tonight, are unbeaten. Notre Dame is 1-2, but owns a signature win over Duke.

Conversely, the two standard bearers of the ACC, Duke and North Carolina, are a combined 2-5 after Duke survived Virginia in Cameron Indoor Monday night.

On Monday's conference call with ACC coaches, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, allowing for the small sample size this season, attributed part of the old Big East's early domination to the teams the ACC targeted for the new incarnation of its league. Pittsburgh and Syracuse are unbeaten at a combined 7-0. The teams meet Saturday at 4 p.m. in the Carrier Dome.

"The teams the ACC picked, the ones they went after, I think their mission was to get the best basketball teams they could," Dixon said. "And Syracuse and us, I think we were one in the last 10 years by a pretty good margin and they were 2, so I think there was a plan that they would try to get some teams that had won before."

(Pittsburgh was 115-57 the last 10 years in the Big East, Syracuse was 114-58 according to the Big East archives. Both teams won two regular-season titles apiece during that span.)

Notre Dame coach Mike Brey, his team still searching for its new identity after Jerian Grant was declared academically ineligible and Cam Biedscheid transferred to Missouri, said he and his staff were watching a recent Maryland game when the ACC standings flashed across the television screen.

The Irish staff noted the early dominance of Syracuse and Pittsburgh. Notre Dame had already defeated Duke at that point.

"I think all three programs going into this season, no matter what league we were going to be in, had experience coming back and had a chance to be successful," Brey said. "I don't know if we ever verbalized it — Jim, Jamie or I while we were on the road this summer, saying 'Hey, let's have the old Big East really get going.' There's probably a little bit of pride getting in the league and kind of establishing yourself right away. I know for us personally, that's something we talked about all summer, to come in and be consistent in the regular season in the first year in the ACC as we did in the Big East."

North Carolina coach Roy Williams, his team winless thus far with losses to Wake Forest, Miami and Syracuse, pointed to the miniscule number of games played and speculated that it would be difficult to draw broad conclusions based on the cyclical nature of the game.

Current standings aside, Williams said the track records of Tobacco Road teams like UNC and Duke have held up over the historical arc of the ACC.

"Over time, Duke and North Carolina have been pretty doggone good and have stood the test of time. Whether this is a bad year or a bad month or a bad week or two bad games, who knows?" Williams said. "In 2010, we had a bad year and then we came back and won the league title in '11 and '12 both. … There's a lot of success with these programs. They've stood the test of time. My first inclination would be to say — 'Listen, don't bury us yet.'"